Moments ago the City Plan Commission recommended a five-year specific use permit for the massive concert venue on Canton Street that has already received city staff's blessings. Says the official recap posted below (along with some Fugazi video, because the Internet), "Dallas’ diverse population wants equally diverse choices in where and how to live and ways to shop and have fun." And what's more fun than a 41,000-square-foot live-music venue in a space that's been vacant for close to 12 years?

Now it's up to the Dallas City Council to OK the SUP at the end of February, but Clint Barlow and wife Whitney, the couple beind Trees, won't begin pulling construction permits until spring at the earliest. The reason: They're also awaiting that wholesale rewrite of the Deep Ellum Planned Development District ordinance that regulates how many spaces businesses must have in order to get their certificates of occupancy -- and how they go about getting them. That's scheduled to go to the City Plan Commission two weeks from today on its way to the council horseshoe.

"We really need that go through because we can't pull permits without it," says Permitted Development’s Audra Buckley, who is shepherding the Barlows through 1500 Marilla. "The parking agreement requirements will change."

Long story short, for those who missed it the first time around: Deep Ellum businesses smaller than 2,500 feet don't need a single parking space to get their certificate of occupancy. But for every 100 square feet over that, a businesses needs one parking space, which makes life especially hard when you're, say, 41,000 square feet and there are all of 2,200 parking spaces in all of Deep Ellum, give or take.

Technically the city requires the Bomb Factory to have 409 parking spaces. But this week it got a special exception: It only needs 320, just 13 of which are the metered spaces along Canton. Most of the remaining 307 will come from the private lots behind the Bomb Factory, between Canton and Commerce, and behind the Uplift charter school on Elm.

And there's the issue -- the part about the lots being "private."

For the Bomb Factory to get those spots, the owners of the lots would have to put them on the building's deed -- which ties them to the Bomb Factory for, well, forever (or thereabouts). The PD rewrite will allow the Barlows to cut private lease agreements with the parking lot owners -- the same deal that businesses have with lot owners in the Bishop Arts District.

"Right now the parking agreements are filed with the county and put on the deed," says Buckley. "This amendment allows the parking agreement to be a private deal filed on the certificate of occupancy. That's the big deal."

For the moment, at least, it looks like the rewrite will skate through CPC and council. Theres no such thing as a Sure Thing at 1500 Marilla, but this looks to be close to one -- for now, anyway.

"The city's interested in moving forward with this neighborhood," says Barry Annino, executive director of the Deep Ellum Foundation. "Otherwise we got a problem. But those at the city I've spoken with, including council members, have been real gung-ho about it. We're gonna need it, especially with the new Elm Street."